Poverty Castle (6 page)

His displeasure lasted only for moments. The five little girls in their red raincoats and with their alert eyes reminded him of robins. He had three granddaughters but he had to confess they had never lifted his heart as high as these Sempill girls did.

Their mother had his heart somersaulting. She was tall. (His Bessie was only five-feet-two.) Elegant. (Bessie was sturdy.) Her large blue eyes were soft with trust and innocence. (Bessie's were blue also but hard with scepticism.) She had a fine figure. (Bessie's stomach was large.) Her hair was fair and lustrous. (Bessie's was grey, stiff, and growing scarce.) If she had a fault it was that she doted on her wishy-washy husband, but as an elder of the Church of Scotland Mr Patterson should not have seen that as a fault but rather as another virtue.

The parents sat on the other side of the big desk. The girls stood in the background, in a row. They had taken their hats off. The eldest, the only dark-haired one in the family, looked more businesslike than her father.

‘Now, Mr Sempill, what can I do for you?'

‘Yesterday, Mr Patterson, visiting Kilcalmonell, we came upon a house that took our fancy. We were informed that you were the person to consult. It is close to the beach. It has not been occupied for many years. It is therefore in a ruinous condition. As a consequence it is known locally as “Poverty
Castle”. I am by profession an architect, Mr Patterson, and it seemed to me a pity that a house which at one time must have had character should have been allowed to become a ruin.'

Mr Patterson was astonished but was too wily to show it. Calmly he took a file from a cabinet. Its most recent additions were letters from Mr Wrigley-Thomson, nephew and heir of Mrs Braidlaw. For over thirty years she had refused to let Ardmore be sold or rented or kept weatherproof. Mr Wrigley-Thomson on the contrary was desperate to be rid of it. He had discovered that substantial rates were still having to be paid.

‘The house you are referring to, Mr Sempill, is Ardmore. Is not your description of it as a ruin somewhat extreme?'

The girls spoke up, one after the other.

‘It's got lots of slates off the roof.'

‘It lets in rain in lots of places.'

‘Some of the ceilings are on the floors.'

‘It's got no back door.'

‘Sheep and cows get in. Their dirt's everywhere.'

‘Rebecca slid on a cow-pat.'

‘There are millions of cobwebs.'

Well-rehearsed wee lassies, thought the lawyer. Then he saw that he was being unfair. They had spoken for themselves. They always would.

‘If you are interested in purchasing a property in the district, Mr Sempill, I have a number for sale, in what is known as “walk-in” condition.'

‘We are interested in this one. I understand it was owned by an old lady recently deceased. Who is the present owner?'

‘Her nephew. He lives in Putney.'

‘Is he prepared to sell it?'

‘He may well be.'

‘How much does he want for it?'

That was how gentry did business: brutally to the point. Mr Patterson had had working-class clients who had shrunk from mentioning money, thinking it would be bad manners.

The girls were gazing at him like judges. They expected fair play.

‘There is a complication, Mr Sempill. Ardmore was once part of Kilcalmonell estate. It was built for the mother of a past laird, before the family became impoverished. Indeed the whole estate passed out of the hands of Kilcalmonell Campbells years ago and is now in the possession of an English gentleman, Sir Edwin Campton. Sir Edwin wishes to buy Ardmore, to raze it to the ground. He believes it detracts from his privacy. Mrs Braidlaw refused to sell. Her nephew, as I have said, sees it differently. However, he considers that the offer made on Sir Edwin's behalf is unacceptably low.'

‘Whatever it is,' said Mr Sempill, ‘I shall double.'

Which would not amount to much really: for Sir Edwin, rich but thrifty, assuming that no one in his senses would want to pay a penny for a ruin, had offered only £3000.

‘Something else I should mention, Mr Sempill. Since Ardmore was built in the estate grounds the road giving it access to the public highway necessarily runs through those grounds. It is stated in the title deeds that the owner or occupier of Ardmore is legally entitled to the use of that road, without hindrance of any kind, for perpetuity.

‘I should hope so, seeing that it is the only way by which vehicles can approach the house. We ourselves approached it on foot, from the beach.'

‘In which case you were trespassing, but perhaps you did not know that.'

‘There were plenty of notices warning us to keep out.'

Mr Patterson coughed. ‘Yes, so there would be. This road, Mr Sempill, was never anything but a cart track. Like the house itself it has been badly neglected. I understand it is now hardly recognisable as a road at all, being completely overgrown. To make it serviceable and keep it so – it is half a mile in length – would cost as much as the repair of the house itself. In fairness I must point that out.'

‘Thank you, Mr Patterson. If I were to buy the property there would be no dispute. The road would be my responsibility.'

The girls were more circumspect.

‘Shouldn't you see it first, Papa?' asked the eldest.

‘If we mended it would it be just for us or would the people from the Big House be allowed to use it too?' That was asked by one of the twins.

‘If it's on their ground they should pay their share,' said the other twin.

Litigation to settle that very point had been threatened in the past.

‘Whose road would it be, ours or theirs?' asked the second youngest, the most beautiful child Mr Patterson had ever seen and, he had thought up to a moment ago, one of the shyest.

‘It would not matter, Rowena,' said her father, ‘so long as there is amicable agreement.'

There probably would be if it was left to Sir Edwin, who from all accounts was good-natured but was said to be under the dominance of his aristocratic wife. To be honest neither was well known locally.

‘I propose to put in an offer forthwith,' said Mr Sempill, ‘through my solicitors, Chambers and Wishart of Edinburgh.'

Mr Patterson had heard of them. They were prestigious.

‘In the meantime, Mr Patterson, we would like to rent a house in Kilcalmonell. Do you have one available?'

‘An excellent one, Bell Heather Cottage. Centrally situated. Handy for school, shop, church, and golf course. Four bedrooms, two public rooms. Large secluded garden.'

‘How many bathrooms?' asked Mrs Sempill.

‘Only one, I'm afraid.'

‘We really need more than one.'

He could appreciate that. He could have sworn that one of the twins winked at him.

‘It would only be for three months at most,' said Mr Sempill, ‘and of course it depends on whether or not we acquire Ardmore.'

‘Why not have a look at it?' suggested Mr Patterson.

They went off with the keys.

The telephone call from Mr Archibald Chambers came in the afternoon, offering £8000 for Ardmore. Disguising his gratification, Mr Patterson let it be understood, as one lawyer to another, that such an offer was not only acceptable but was accepted there and then: all that remained were formalities. Mr Chambers' tone conveyed that in his view his client Mr Sempill, though he had plenty of it, was something of a simpleton where money was concerned. Mr Patterson who would have gladly accepted £6000 saw no reason to disagree.

Afterwards, though, he wasn't quite so sure. As an architect of even adequate competence Sempill could make a good job of restoring Ardmore. By spending, say, another twenty or thirty thousand on a house and road he could end up owning a property worth sixty thousand, if he ever wanted to sell. Mr Patterson hoped he would not. It was pleasant to think of the resurrected house on the machair ringing with the laughter of those charming little girls, and having as its chatelaine that sweet lovely woman.

 

H
E HAD
never let anyone, not even Jessie, see his work in progress. Nor had she ever asked. She knew how touchy and anxious an author was when working on a new book. All the praise in the world wasn't reassurance enough.

This time, however, since it would be his last, she subdued her pride and asked how his ‘happy' novel was getting on. Would he mind if she had a look at what he had done? If he had declined she would have been relieved, because in fairness to both of them she would have to say honestly what she thought, even if it disappointed and hurt him.

He hesitated. He had only written five chapters, he said. A lot of revision had to be done.

Thus discouraged she should have said, ‘All right. I'll wait till it's finished.' Except she didn't think it would ever be finished. But it was her duty as his wife to give him what support she could. If what he had written showed signs of enfeebled powers it would be up to her to try to dissuade him from going on with it, to the detriment of his health, physical and mental.

‘If you like,' he said at last.

She waited until he had gone out for his daily walk before reading it. She did not want him moping nearby. Like Harvey the cat when a mouse he had brought in had been taken from him.

He was back in the house a good three hours before the subject was brought up. Out of pride he would not bring it up, and she perversely indicated that she had more urgent matters to attend to, such as the ironing and preparing the evening meal.

At table they listened to the six o'clock news on the radio. As usual it was mainly about violence and death.

‘About your book, Donald,' she said. ‘You've cheated. By making them so well-off. So it's easy for them not to be envious or covetous, which I've heard you say are the greatest causes of bitterness and unhappiness. Rich too, through no effort of their own. Handed to them on a plate. I thought you objected to inherited fortunes. Why should a rich man's children have so many advantages over a poor man's?'

He was silent.

‘I'm surprised you didn't have them give it all away. That would have been more your kind of book.'

‘Perhaps I couldn't.'

‘Do you mean nobody would have believed you?'

‘A novelist can't make his characters do what's untrue to their natures.'

‘Nonsense. They're your characters, your creations. You can make them do anything you like.'

‘It's not as simple as that.'

‘Another thing, you said you were going to do without irony. Isn't calling the house Poverty Castle blatant irony?'

‘Maybe.'

‘How's it going to end? What's going to happen to them?'

‘I don't know that yet.'

‘You mean you haven't decided?'

‘I mean I don't know.'

It wasn't the first time she had felt impatient at his implying there was something mystical about the relationship between a novelist and his characters.

‘Usually you've got some nasty surprises in store for your characters, Donald, but you can't have for the Sempills. You think they deserve happiness. They don't know it but it's
you
who are protecting them.'

She was doing what she had vowed not to do. By showing interest in his characters she was giving them life.

‘So you would like to know what happens to them?'

‘I won't lose any sleep over it. It's real people I'm interested in, not phantoms. I know you have some kind of daft notion that the characters in your books have a kind of reality of their own. Where are they at the moment? If I was to visit Kilcalmonell, or Kilmory, would I find that house? Would I see the Sempills?'

‘In your imagination you might.'

She was unwilling to admit it, yet the next thing she said was itself an admission. ‘That scene where Mrs Sempill – lovely sweet woman indeed! – thanks her husband for making love to her. What nonsense! No woman with a scrap of self-respect ever thanked a man for
that
! Four times, my foot!'

I
T CONTINUED
to be a fine summer, with long warm sunny days. Brown as tinkers, scratched, bitten, stung, and pricked, the girls explored everywhere, on bicycles or on foot. If an expedition was to a place too distant, Rebecca stayed at home, to keep her mother company and help her with the baking and house-work. Rowena too sometimes, but her reason was that she hated being tired and dirty. They became kenspeckle in the village. They made friends with Mr Campbell's robins but were, alas, unable to teach them to share the crumbs with the chaffinches. They stood for hours on shoogly stones in the middle of Kilcalmonell River fishing for minnows while dragonflies darted past their heads. They gathered mushrooms on the golf course, heedless of roars of ‘Fore!' They went to the harbour and watched the fishing boats unload their catch. They swam or paddled at their beach. Tutored by Mama they learned the names of trees and wild flowers. Smeared with oil of citronella they picnicked in midgy places, often in the estate grounds. Their hair was bleached almost to whiteness: except Diana's, out of which often had to be combed sticky willies, tiny flies, twigs and even caterpillars, because in all their adventures she took it on herself to go first, even to the tops of trees, though she hated heights.

Rowena went on practising acting. On one occasion she appalled them by expiring on the lawn at Bell Heather Cottage, her mouth stained with juice, feared at first to be that of the deadly nightshade but later discovered to be that of elderberries.

They did not have much contact with the village children.
This was not snobbiness. They just found their own company sufficient.

To begin with their uninhibited inquisitiveness was regarded by the villagers as upper-class cheek, especially when they switched from their refined Edinburgh accent to the local bucolic lilt. But they proved so unquenchable and were so enthusiastically interested, even in matters quite unsuitable for small girls, such as the mating endeavours of Willie McPherson's white bull, that they were soon accepted as valuable acquisitions to the life of the village, even if they did not go to Sunday School.